Brother: Your job pays extremely well and quitting would make you lose your worker’s visa. Don’t be such a drama queen.

Me: Don’t you need a worker’s visa too? Why don’t you apply for a job at my company?

Brother: I guess I can do that.

(One interview later…)

Brother: Your boss is a jackass. Quit your job.

To tell the truth, my boss at the time was not really a jackass. He worked himself as hard as he worked any of us and donated a lot of money to advance education in poor countries. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t a nightmare to work for. He just didn’t understand the point of view of someone who used the job to pay the bills and needed free time to do what they really wanted to do. It never occurred to him that working Saturdays and Sundays for a month would not go over well with people who didn’t love their job as much as he did.

You may notice that the font has reverted to the Autumn Children font and the screentone has disappeared. This is because I plan to execute everything in plain black and white first, then work with my publisher on the typesetting and screentone. (Those of you who bought the paper version of Autumn Children have seen that the font and screentone are different from the ones on this site – thanks to my publisher who replaced them herself.) I will be able to proceed from now on at the rate of two pages a week, like with Autumn Children.

After finishing the second page of Use Your Illusion, I stopped. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go through with it. I felt like I had typecast myself, and should do something new, something with more action, something that wasn’t an optimistic story filled with round-faced children.

I contacted my brother (a far better writer than myself) and he promised to give me a story to work with.

Me: I’m not sure. I started on a Youmu x Reisen book… (takes out a cheap inkjet print of the Use Your Illusion cover.)

Sanae: And of course it has Sanae.

Me: It’s a rule on Pixiv that all Youmu x Reisen pairings must be moderated by Sanae.

Sanae: I’m glad you know the rules. Just last week I read a doujin where Tewi gives Sanae a potion and she drinks it like this… (poses with a foot up on a box like Captain Morgan and pretends to drink a potion.)

Me: And Sanae turns into a small catgirl, and proceeds to troll the crap out of Youmu and Reisen.